Even if a UBI alone cannot solve, it sets the precedent for further changes.

Basic income is by no means enough on its own to achieve true gender equality, but the feminist justification of a basic income, unlike justifications based on the traditional androcentric subject of justice and citizenship, implies other institutional and policy changes as well to make sharing caregiving responsibilities easier and more attractive for women and men. Some steps along the path to gender equality follow directly from the universal caregiver model of citizenship, and include: • the wider availability of part-time work and job sharing; • job security during periodic leaves for full-time caregiving; • the decoupling of access to benefits such as health insurance and pensions from paid employment (a continuing problem in the US); • the widespread availability of care centres, both publicly supported and privately run, for children, older people and adults unable to care for themselves; • the reconfiguring of children’s schooling away from an anachronistic schedule designed to conform to the requirements of an agricultural society and a schedule that recognises the realities of paid employment demands on many parents.6 Other steps require extending the norm of gender neutrality now prevalent in higher education and professional workplaces, for example to the still androcentric institutions of vocational education and skilled blue-collar workplaces (Bergmann, 2005; Estévez-Abe, 2006). Still other steps require a more radical restructuring of the employment sector including, for example, reductions in rewards for seniority or continuity of service in promotions or advancement to protected status in both blue-collar and professional jobs.